Just last night I was thinking that I should call Brian Cashman and find out what’s going on with Alex Rodriguez’s surgery. Looks like Dan Martin made that call for me.

Martin reported this morning that no date has been set for Rodriguez’s surgery. Not sure that should be considered a setback — we’ve known all along that it likely wouldn’t happen until January — and if it doesn’t happen until mid-to-late January, that changes expectations by only a week or two. It could be a problem, based on what we know now, and based on how vague the situation was to begin with, it’s hard to get too worked up about it.

Cashman is still hesitant to give an expected return date, but as someone brought up in this afternoon’s chat, he did acknowledge that this year’s Yankees are likely to hit fewer home runs without Rodriguez, Nick Swisher or Russell Martin.

“I know a lot of people have told me they think home runs are bad,” Cashman said. “I’m not one of them. Well, those people are going to get a chance to see what it looks like.”